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clever (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 34 points 2 months ago (22 children)

American food is usually hybrid food based on other cultures, either with american ingredients (potatos, tomatos, peppers) or multiple cultures blending together.

Some that I would think should be considered good american food:

smoked/BBQ, Cajun food, generally Southern Cooking, American Chinese food, Tex Mex, Lobster and sorta all those northeastern cuisines, hamburgers and hotdogs.

I don't know why people think America does food bad, we're not one of the fattest countries because our food sucks.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    I agree, but also - tomatoes and potatoes are from the Americas - so that pizza in Italy? It is ALSO 'fusion' food.

    That's just how food works. People eat what's available, and more stuff has become available over the past few hundred years. heh.

    I think the whole thing is silly. Enjoy good food! Who cares about the rest?

    And sure, I make authentic creole dishes as well as southern, and some legit texmex. But if I didn't, if I made tasty food, who the hell cares? lol.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    Tex mex is soooo good but the name makes it sound like "shitty American version of Mexican food" when that couldn't be further from the truth

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    Only if you have insufficient love and respect for Texas (ignore recent fascist bullshit). :D

    But I think it works. It takes the best from both to come up with... well... in practice, you can take a few ingredients and make them into a lot of different things...... but they are all very tasty, so there's that. hehe

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    No no, no disrespect intended by that. It just sounds like a knockoff. Fool's gold, mocktail, texmex, etc.

    To anyone unfamiliar, texmex is not some sort of "what if we combined X and Y?" Michelin star fusion. It's the natural evolution of cuisine trade between northern Mexicans and Texans (tejanos). A lot of things people think of as Mexican are actually texmex. Like fajitas. I think queso or nachos?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Lighthearted exhortation - I still love a lot about Texas, but there's a lot going wrong there. Was basically playing with you a little very very very indirectly alluding to the "Don't Mess With Texas" slogan :)

    Very well explained, I think. Don't discount the Native American contributions, too!

    Some of the dishes of Tex-Mex:

    • Chili con carne
    • Fajitas
    • Nachos
    • Hard-shell tacos
    • yellow chile con queso (Mexican uses white cheese, Tex-Mex uses yellow cheese)

    Also, interestingly, the entree-with-rice-and-beans is also Tex-Mex.

    It's wild that people dismiss the cuisine as some sort of lesser thing. It's just how food works - ideas spread, ingredients spread, people create new things that stick around and BAM you have a new cuisine. :)

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    See, even I didn't know that about the rice.

    I think a lot of cuisines south of the mason dixon get a bad reputation because of the people.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (4 children)

    I agree, and I think it's unfair. lol. There's a definitely divide betwen urban people and rural people, and I'm not talking politics here.

    Urban people all have to get along in a shared space. They don't wave and say "howdy' every time they pass on the street because they'd go hoarse within an hour. Rural people tend not to encounter as many people.

    Rural people recognize that strangers being around is much more likely to be bad news. Help is also farther away. So there's a tendency for a culture of self-reliance, and suspicion of outsiders.

    If you know someone rural, there's a good chance they'd give you the shirt off their back if you needed help and they were able to help. People have to help each other, there's nobody else that can.

    In an urban environment, we're more used to being able to have social safety nets - even if we largely don't in the US - and being able to call someone to help someone in need.

    So I think a lot of the reputation is undeserved. Good people and bad people everywhere.

    I do think the fascist figured out that the rural folks were easier to manipulate, although they do try to manipulate everyone.

    But anyway. lol.

    Certainly the food of the South is generally fantastic. And it should count toward honest US cuisine. People don't consider it to be haute cuisine, so they downplay it - but consistently people outside the US who come and try it love it. lol.

    And then you get into places like Louisiana and Cajun and Creole, for example, and there's a whole other little world of delightful things.

    It's wild to me because as Americans we tend to take pride in far too many things we shouldn't, and yet we are down on ourselves about our food that is legitimately awesome.

    I mean, take pizza and burgers - the ideas came from elsewhere, but we made both of those things our own. They are fully American in the way they're presented to the point that it is generally our version of those things that has spread back around the world (and then locally enhanced and changed in places). lol.

    But that's just how it goes. Curry went from India to Britain, and then when it went fro Britain to Japan, they call it "English curry". And now I buy "Japanese curry" (S&B brand) because I love it and love the Japanese "English" curry that came from India. lol.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    I really should have clarified "the popular depictions of the people" but yeah, half of my family is from Georgia so I spent a lot of time in the south over the years. There's certainly no shortage of good people but stereotype unfortunately exists for a reason. That said, those same people are in rural Michigan, Indiana, Wyoming, New York...but I guess they don't have the slavery connotations

    Funny you bring up Indian food....literally 10 minutes ago I was explaining the cuisine to a coworker who had never tried it and suggested she give Tikka Masala a spin. And then explained how it's Indian food but also probably British.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    Oh man, I would love to be able to go down the journey of discovery on Indian food. Although I guess for that matter, I haven't had a whole bunch. More of the "packets" you can buy (although at least those are generally made in India and shipped heh), only because most Indian places I've encountered are..... not cheap. heh. I wish more cuisines had buffets so you can try more stuff :) I have to be careful because I can't do onions or bell peppers unless they're cooked to smithereens like in gumbo. heh.

    And yeah, plenty of asshats in rural, but also urban. :) But I do think, bringing politics back into it....... we definitely have a huge rural/urban divide as far as things like social safety nets and, y'know, human rights. lol.

    I had to block most of my family over the years for that shit. It gets old. heh

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    The packets are pretty good. You can get curry paste in jars but I've only seen it at the Indian grocery store. I usually stick to the packets because I'm too lazy to drive there.

    I've found a lot of both Indian and Thai food to be surprisingly easy to cook at home. Both are just so far from my "normal" flavors, it felt so daunting

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I love food, I so agree. Honestly if I were rich I would be traveling the world trying as much food from as many places as I could.

    In spite of recent events, I'm actually quite glad I grew up American with parents who have friends from all over the world.

    I'm 30 now, but the appreciation of foods and cultures was instilled into me from very young, I genuinely believe that sitting down and sharing meals with people might be the ultimate peak of the human experience.

    So yeah I get a little salty when people start trashing American food, because American food is hundreds of cultures coming together and making something different but similar and what could be better than that?

    Also its like, the only good part of this country anymore .-.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    So yeah I get a little salty

    WRONG; You got a little MSG-ey. There was salt, but also the umami of stating true things in there, too :)

    also agreed on the end thre :)

    But I also think that's why people making fun of UK on food are wrong, too. Similar there - the food culture is vibrant.

    Also, nice-looking food is nice, but how food tastes is more important to me.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    I don't know why people think America does food bad, we're not one of the fattest countries because our food sucks.

    I would guess this has more to do with your food having tons of sugar and giant portions. Plenty of countries have amazing food. Not all of them struggle with obesity so much.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    ehh its a lot more complicated than it seems.

    I think for me I would point to the fact that cheap sugary shit tends to be well, cheap.

    For example I had a pack of gummy lifesavers (hard as a rock, rip me) and it was the cheapest thing in my lunch today despite being like, 8 servings of candy? it was cheaper than the water I got??? What the heck is up with that???

    Honestly portion size isnt what I would point to, I feel like its custom here to take home leftovers and stuff, even when you visit someone's house for dinner and they make way too much. I'm sure there's some psychological stuff here with portion size, just in my experience I've never felt the need to eat everything and Ive been reasonably healthy all my life.

    And yeah shout out to (in no particular order) Mexico, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, China, South Korea, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Vietnam, Thailand, The Dutch, Singapore, Poland, and anyone I forgot y'all are real ones I love your food.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    You've got to give some credit that gluttony is somewhere in the causal mix.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I dunno I've visited a lot of places and seen a lot of people and it's not like Americans are unique in how much food we eat?

    I'd point to the fact that sugary/bad for you stuff tends to be cheap first and foremost. It's really easy to fill up on empty calories if you're stuffing your face with candy and fast food.

    Secondarily I would point how hard it is to avoid ultra-processed garbage. It's really everywhere and everything here, even things that are "healthy" are pretty terrible usually. Unless you're eating/making everything fresh it's not easy to avoid some of this garbage and it's basically all empty calories.

    I also think, far more important than gluttony, there's very little actual food education in the US. Unless you're kinda into fitness and watching what you eat, you don't really know what macros and stuff do and why things are important.

    There's also food deserts, the fact that American cities are meant to be driven and basically cannot be walked/biked, and just generally sedentary lifestyles across all of America.

    Genuinely I don't think that the fat countries around the world are "extra gluttons" compared to the rest of the world. It's anecdotal of course, but I often hear of Europeans visiting and gaining weight. I doubt they're suddenly becoming gluttons the moment they land in America. I think that's like maybe the 10th most important reason at best. We're all humans and while culture is different and could lead to different eating habits, I don't think that matters that much. I think Canada for example, is quite culturally similar to the US but they have an obesity rate of only 27.1% compared to America's 41.8%

    I think one place where portion size might actually be a factor in retrospect is with soda. Our larges are huge and people will down those things like crazy.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    So, no credit at all to human behaviour? I agree with most of what you are saying but you at least have to allow that some of it is gluttony. Even one out of one hundred?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    The giant portions thing is a cultural left over in a lot of ways, food used to be cooked in a far more communal method and often combined supper and lunch then a snack later at night. For example apparently my 2x great grandfather ensured a small feast for him, my great grandfather, his wife (remarried technically not my ancestor), and all the temp workers during harvest. That's not even getting into things like potlucks.

    As for sugar I blame the post war period, arguably the amount of sugar in shit has been decreasing slowly since the 90s but it's a slow generational thing.

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